In 1997 when their Metal Blade debut, The Grand Grimoire, was released there was a lot of hoopla surrounding the band, to which I boldly slouched and yawned… been there, done that, heard it all before. 1999 brought Bloody Blasphemy, which garnered even more praise and worship, to which I simply fluffed up my pillow and went back to sleep, very, very bored. In 2000, after a tour which hit Europe, North America and Japan long-time drummer Roel left the band due to "personal reasons" and was replaced behind the kit by session, ex-AngelCorpse, skinsman Tony Laureano and their latest effort Ravenous was written and recorded. Admittedly my opinion before even listening to the new effort was "Why should I even bother? I know this is going to suck!", but after giving the album a few listens through, perhaps I spoke too quickly. The first thing that leaps at you is the drumming in that Tony can actually play, and play incredibly well, as he’s proved with Acheron, Aura Borealis and AngelCorpse. Unlike Roel he doesn’t live and die on the blast beat, he can still mow you down with his insane blasts, however he does like to mix things up, and while God Dethroned has probably never been faster than they are now, the drumming does not suffer and become ridiculously monotonous as it had in the past. The riffing seems to have much stronger structure than it’s ever have, mixing 80s death-thrash with a straight forward death metal assault, with a few solos tossed in for good measure. The dual vocal approach seems to be working rather well with the Jeff Walker-like guttural snarls and deep booming lows. The songs that immediately caught my attention were "The Poison Apple (Eve & Serpentio In The Garden Of Eden)", their cover of Macabre End’s "Consumed By Darkness" and "The Crown For The Morbid". Each track is seemingly so different, yet strangely all fit together, like pieces in a puzzle you swear won’t go together, but somehow do. "The Poison Apple" is pretty much straight ahead in your face death-thrash, kicking your teeth in and dragging you out the door by the scruff of your neck, and is very reminiscent of Carcass‘ "Doctrinal Expletives" (from 1994’s Heartwork). When Henri sings "Eve take a bite (fear not). Eve you’re a god (the poison apple)…" I can almost hear Jeff Walker singing "Silence (has a definition). Vocabulary (of muted diction)…" in my head. The cover of Macabre End’s "Consumed By Darkness" is just a well structured melodic Swedish death metal track, and while it does contain keyboarding, which I usually despise, overall the track is just well played. "The Crown For The Morbid" is more or less just another straight forward death metal assault, the idea seems to be get from point A to point B while going through as many people in the process, and is also the track with the most use of the low vocals. Of course, this album is far from flawless, the cover of Death’s "Evil Dead", which may be very fast and aggressive, is still very weak compared to the original. Most of the rest of the album does have that rather generic sound to it, however not nearly as bad as on past releases. The band has made a lot of strides in the right direction and, to me at least, sound MUCH better than they have before, and while they haven’t converted me into a God Dethroned fan, they have certainly put out their best releases to date, and hopefully will continue to improve with their new full-time drummer Arien van Weesenbeek, if they continue to progress it’s only a matter of time til they eventually win me over… stranger things have happened.

Written By: Teufel